Beautiful

• Beautiful connects famous icons of feminine beauty through a single narrative, pretending that they are all the same character - encourages a discussion about the archetype of the sought-after feminine beauty through time.
• Not all of the women assure sought-after in the sense that they are desired by many men - instead they are hounded by the media and popular culture.
• It provides the argument that the male fetish for these ideal beauties has led to little more than an abusive and shameful situation, where at the conclusion, Princess Diana has ‘History’s stinking breath in her face.’
• The poem lays the blame firmly at the feet of the male gaze and the media as a focus for this.
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  Allusions : Duffy alludes to historical figures in an attempt to convey a clear message.
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  Parallelism = used to link key phrases at different points in the poem ‘Beauty is fame’ and ‘beauty is fate’.
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  Assonance = links words at different points in the poem - particularly on the last line of each stanzas in the Monroe section - ‘whooped’ ‘ swooned’ ‘drooled’ - highlights how the whole world ogled her invasively.
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  The internal rhyme - ‘cutting room floor/filmed more’ highlights the relentlessness of the media attention.
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  The irregularity of the rhyme = undermines any attempt by the reader from engaging with a traditional presentation of aesthetic beauty.